Thirteen-year-old Samim is a loyal friend, a gifted chess player — and a refugee. After his family is killed in a bombing, Samim makes a long, dangerous journey from Afghanistan to the UK. But even then his safety isn’t guaranteed: Samim must tell his story to convince the authorities to let him stay for good. Here is an extract describing a moment in his escape.

My Name is Samim
By Fidan Meikle
Published by Floris Books

Istanbul, Turkey, spring 2021 

At Uncle Amir’s house, every morning at nine his sons brought tea and bread to our room. It was the routine everyone got used to, so we were all dressed and ready by then. 

But one morning, we awoke to a knock at around six, and everyone knew it was time. 

‘You have ten minutes to get ready,’ Uncle Amir said, peeking into our room. 

We gathered at the front door, and he handed us small food packets for the road. The handler with yellow teeth stood at the doorstep, leaning on the wall, smoking. He had a list in his hands. 

‘Samim, Zayn, Adel.’ He muttered the names with the cigarette between his teeth, clouds of smoke blowing out of his mouth. 

Uncle Amir motioned to us with his head to follow the handler. 

Darya, Zayn and I shared excited looks. We were so happy to leave together! 

We piled into the taxi, our chests throbbing with both joy and dread. 

‘Save your snacks,’ Darya warned us. 

Three hours later, we swapped the taxi for another car driven by an old handler who never spoke a word to us. The Turkish sky outside the windows was blue, the sun was warm, and as I sat next to my two best friends, flutters of hope warmed my chest. 

We talked, laughed, argued, interrupted each other and dreamt aloud. We wondered what our future homes would look like and what our friends would be called. We talked until we were breathless, and then we sat quietly for a while. In silence, drops of fear seeped into our chests, and we thought of our lost families. 

At midnight, we arrived at the seaport called Çanakkale. As soon as we got out, we felt the salty breeze on our tired faces and heard the wails of seagulls. We couldn’t see it in the dark, but we knew the sea was close. 

The driver led us to where a group of around thirty people stood in silence, surrounding a tall, bearded man who shone a torch on a piece of paper. The air smelled of fish and fear. 

The sea was calm, its waters motionless, like black glass. The pale moon hung over us, unfolding a thin golden path like a carpet towards the horizon. 

The moon is showing us the way, I thought. 

Our handler exchanged a few words with the man, among which we heard our names and the name of our smuggler, Mustafa. Then, the handler gave us a plastic bag with water and biscuits. 

‘Go with God,’ were his only words, but his gaze was full of pity. 

Zayn, Darya and I looked at each other as the trickles of fear in our chests turned into streams. 

The handler walked away, and the bearded man tossed us three red life jackets. We wrestled them on, then clambered, one by one, into a dinghy bobbing beside us. The bearded man was the last to board. He started the engine and passed the torch to the man sitting by the tiller, gesturing forward with his arm. The man at the tiller gave him a timid nod, and the bearded man leapt from the dinghy, untied the rope from the post and walked away without looking back. 

People shouted after him in panic. ‘What are you doing? Come back! Where are we meant to go?’ 

But the man dissolved into the night as we drifted further and further away from the shore. 

My chest tightened with panic. Why hadn’t he got in the boat? How were we meant to navigate it ourselves? 

The man with a torch wiped the sweat off his stubbly face, kissed the wedding ring on his finger and gripped the tiller tightly. He stared into the murky void ahead, his wild eyes flashing white in the dark. I don’t think he had ever steered a boat before. He had probably never seen the sea before. But people do whatever it takes to survive, and that night, the man who had never seen the sea became our captain. 

There were twenty-eight of us, packed in like dates in a crate, rubbing shoulders with one another, feeling each other’s breath on our necks. But although there were so many of us – men, women and children – no one spoke, which meant there was no distraction from the fear squeezing our chests. 

Drops of cold sweat covered my face as the town lights behind us grew smaller and paler. 

Soon, it was just us: a bunch of castaways jammed on a tiny dinghy, with blackness above, beneath, around and inside us. 

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‘We’re going home,’ Darya said, sitting between Zayn and me, her eyes smiling. 

‘We’re going home,’ I muttered under my breath. This must be the best sentence in the world. A spark of hope flared in my chest. 

But a few hours later, our engine started shaking with thunderous coughs. The dinghy slowed down and then stopped altogether. The sharp smell of gasoline filled the air. 

‘It’s leaking! The fuel tank is leaking! I think we’ve lost all our petrol!’ our captain hollered, his eyes wild. 

And with his voice, the black silence around us shattered like glass. People screamed and gasped, men tried to stand up to look at the engine, and the dinghy swayed from side to side. 

‘Stop! Stop moving so much, or we’ll all end up in the water!’ our captain yelled, and everyone went quiet. 

‘What do we do?’ a voice in the dark asked. 

But no one had an answer. 

Men tried to use their arms to row, sweat dribbling off their breathless faces, but hours later, we had hardly moved. 

The silver moon glowed as our sorry little dinghy bobbed on the never-ending inky waves. 

We spent the night praying. 

‘We’ll be alright, don’t worry,’ Darya said to two sobbing kids across from us. 

Their snotty faces were warped with fear as they clutched their mum, a thin woman with a gaunt face who swayed from side to side, eyes shut, lost in prayer. She was rubbing a silver locket on her neck, and I wondered what story it kept inside. 

‘Will we die?’ asked a little boy with blisters on his face, his voice croaky from crying. 

‘Don’t be silly!’ Darya waved her arm at him. She leaned towards him and whispered, ‘Do you want to know a secret?’ 

The boy nodded, blinking rapidly in excitement. 

Darya beamed. ‘My name is Darya. And Darya means “sea”. You see, I’m friends with sea gods, so I won’t let anything bad happen to you.’ 

A wide grin flashed on the boy’s thin face. 

I smiled, and noticed Zayn smile, too. He gaped at Darya tenderly, his eyes full of pride, warmth and wonder. I had never seen Zayn look at anyone that way before. 

We leaned on each other for warmth and comfort, and, eventually, the waves lulled us to sleep. 

The morning sun woke us, its warm fingers stroking our faces. And although we welcomed the warmth and the light, I wished I’d stayed asleep, dreaming of the rolling hills of Ghazni and my mother’s embrace.  

Around midday, a sudden scream woke me from my daydreams. 

‘Look! Over there! There are two boats there!’ the mother across from us yelled. ‘Two boats! And they can see us!’ 

My Name is Samim by Fidan Meikle is published by Floris Books, priced £7.99.